Obert Mpofu criticises Finance Minister Tendai Biti

Obert Mpofu, the Mines and Mining Development Minister has criticised Finance Minister Tendai Biti for allocating his ministry  meager resources despite the huge contributions made to the fiscus by the mining sector.

He castigated Minister Biti's directive to have mining royalties submitted directly to Treasury and affecting funds being remitted to Government in royalties.

The Minister was addressing a pre-budget consultative seminar being attended by legislators in Victoria Falls.

Mines and Energy portfolio committee chairperson Cde Edward Chindori-Chininga concurred with Minister Mpofu.

Cde Chindori-Chininga said the mining ministry ought to be adequately resourced as a cash cow for Government so that  the State gets maximum benefit from it.

Minister Mpofu said: "We are not given sufficient resources; we need money for vehicles for our staff to do their work.

"We have received about 47 percent of what was allocated to us as a ministry for this year and the bulk is recurrent expenditure."

He said the mines ministry got US$2,4 million out of an allocation of US$4,5 million yet they are projecting that diamonds alone would contribute US$2 billion per year.

Minister Mpofu said Minister Biti made amendments to the Finance Act whose effect was to see mining firms submitting royalties directly to Treasury.

"We are in doubt whether the objectives of amending the Act are being met.

"We would be collecting more than what they (Treasury) are currently getting because right now there is cheating which cannot happen when we are collecting as the miners cannot lie to us since we know what they get," he said.

During the discussion, Mbizo MP Mr Settlement Chikwinya (MDC-T) castigated Minister Biti for his absence on the latter part of seminar.

He said Minister Biti should have been present throughout the seminar so that he captures concerns by stakeholders and uses them in budget formulation.